| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: fools."
"It is not so easy to work with the brain," the old devil said.
"You will not give me anything to eat because my hands have not
the appearance of being toil-hardened, but you must understand
that it is much harder to do brain-work, and sometimes the head
feels like bursting with the effort it is forced to make."
"Then why do you not select some light work that you can perform
with your hands?" Ivan asked.
The devil said: "I torment myself with brain-work because I have
pity for you fools, for, if I did not torture myself, people like
you would remain fools for all eternity. I have exercised my
The Kreutzer Sonata |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: indignation was doubled by her determination not to! I fear that few of
us live by logic, even in Kings Port; and then, they had all called upon
her in that garden for nothing! The sudden thought of this made me laugh
alone in my bed of sickness; and when I came out of it, had such a thing
been possible, I should have liked to congratulate Miss Josephine St.
Michael on her absence from the garden occasion. I said, however, nothing
to her, or to any of the other ladies, upon this or any subject, for I
was so unlucky as to find them not at home when I paid my round of
farewell visits. Nor (to my real distress) did I see John Mayrant again.
The boy wrote me (I received it in bed) a short, warm note of regret,
with nothing else in it save the fact that he was leaving town, having
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: appeal with entire success. The cases of Deborah and Huldah
can be brought into no sort of harmony with his thesis.
Indeed, I may say that, logically, he left his bones there;
and that it is but the phantom of an argument that he parades
thenceforward to the end. Well was it for Knox that he
succeeded no better; it is under this very ambiguity about
Deborah that we shall find him fain to creep for shelter
before he is done with the regiment of women. After having
thus exhausted Scripture, and formulated its teaching in the
somewhat blasphemous maxim that the man is placed above the
woman, even as God above the angels, he goes on triumphantly
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation.
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather
than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather
than let it perish. And the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed
generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it.
These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew
that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen,
perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the
insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed
no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.
Second Inaugural Address |
